Guest Columns - The Journal

Protect Medicare: Fight plan to code high, treat low

Medicare was enacted in 1965 after a fierce fight with doctors and the health industry. The same fears of socialized medicine and rationed care were shouted in 1965 as they are today. Fifty...

DATE: Mar 16, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Imagine a great river, flowing free through Glen Canyon

Some environmental groups and water honchos have sponsored a “Rewilding of Glen Canyon” contest, with the winner getting $4,000 “and counting.” The contest’s goal is to reconnect the Colorad...

DATE: Feb 16, 2022 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

School board did not give superintendent a chance to succeed

In evaluating superintendent Risha VanderWey, the Montezuma-Cortez School District RE-1 Board of Education acted like a kangaroo court, ignoring due process and coming to a predetermined con...

DATE: Feb 9, 2022 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Action is necessary to address EMS workforce shortage

The nation’s emergency medical services system is facing a crippling workforce shortage, a long-term problem that has been building for more than a decade. It threatens to undermine our emer...

DATE: Nov 25, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Political balance, unaffiliated members key to redistricting commission’s success

As a lifelong unaffiliated voter, the chance to participate in an inherently political process on an equal footing with affiliated voters was very appealing. I was thrilled to be the first ...

DATE: Nov 24, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

No time to waste addressing the climate crisis – pass the Build Back Better Act

From the quiet of the backcountry, we have seen and experienced the climate changing. Larger wildfires, unpredictable flash floods, hotter heat waves, bigger storms and longer droughts have...

DATE: Nov 17, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

This Western Colorado rancher has radical ideas about water

If Jim Howell, a fourth-generation rancher in Western Colorado, has a guru, he’s Allan Savory, the champion of intensive cattle grazing even on semi-arid land. Howell, 52, says Savory’s meth...

DATE: Oct 27, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

America is getting meaner, on the left and on the right

I went to see my doctor the other day for a COVID-19-delayed physical. Instead of talking about what ails me, he wanted to talk about what ails us. A dystopian country. The Babel of misinfor...

DATE: Jun 30, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Now underway: An American Renaissance

In 1982, economist Mancur Olson set out to explain a paradox. West Germany and Japan endured widespread devastation during World War II, yet in the years after the war both countries experie...

DATE: Jun 23, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Boebert responds to Herald editorial

The Durango Herald editorial board recently published a partisan attack piece falsely accusing me of not focusing on Colorado’s 3rd District. Nothing could be further from the truth. Th...

DATE: Jun 16, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

When it comes to survival, don’t bet against this fish

I love fish – the way they look, the way they fry up, the secret lives they live under the water. And of all the fish in the sea, river or lake, I most prize those that descended from the gr...

DATE: Jun 9, 2021 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Vote ’Yes’ on broadband ballot issue to improve service to Cortez area

On June 8 residents of Cortez will be asked to vote on a ballot issue exempting the City of Cortez from Senate Bill 152. SB 152 was passed by the Colorado legislature in 2005 after much lobb...

DATE: May 24, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns